ASP.NET 2.0: How to make a page remember viewstate without creating history points?

Question

I have a page with a few fields and a runtime-generated image on it. The contents of this page are inside an UpdatePanel. There is a button to take the user to a secondary page, which has a button that calls javascript:history.go(-1) when clicked.

The problem is, the first page does a full request instead of a postback or just using the state it was in before navigating away from it. That is, the fields are all reset to their default values, thereby confusing the user. I'd like their values to be retained regardless of navigation. I do not want to create a new history state for every field change.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The only other option would be to track the field state in a client side cookie using JavaScript (which has limitations). It would be best to have an AJAX call that was executed prior to navigation to your secondary page that would allow the server to save the state of the page so that when your reverse navigation occurred you could properly render that state to the browser.

Answer 2

I think I'll try the AJAX idea when I have a little more time to work on it. I'll probably just send back the viewstate field :P Thanks for the input.